World Heading for ‘Irrecoverable Overshoot’ of 1.5°C as Climate Action Stalls, Major Report Warns

The world is heading for an “irrecoverable overshoot” of the 1.5°C global warming limit, a major new analysis has warned, because governments have spent five years making promises on climate change without turning them into action.

The report, by the independent research group Climate Action Tracker, was released this week at the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye. It finds that under the policies governments have actually put in place, the planet is on course to heat up by 2.7°C on average by the end of the century, compared with pre-industrial times. That is slightly worse than the 2.6°C the same group predicted last year.

The 1.5°C limit was agreed by almost every country in the world a decade ago, under the Paris Agreement of 2015. Scientists say it is the line beyond which the damage from storms, droughts, heatwaves and flooding becomes far harder — in some places impossible — to live with. The new report says that line is now set to be crossed within a few years, and that the world must now focus on keeping the overshoot as small and as short as possible.

At a glance

• What happened: Climate Action Tracker released its annual assessment at COP31 in Antalya, warning the world is heading for an “irrecoverable overshoot” of the 1.5°C warming limit.
• The headline number: Current government policies put the world on course for 2.7°C of warming by 2100, up from 2.6°C in last year’s assessment.
• Even keeping every promise is not enough: If all countries delivered on all their climate pledges, warming would still reach 2.6°C by the end of the century. In the most optimistic scenario, it would still reach 1.9°C.
• Why it matters: Passing 1.5°C will make storms, droughts, heatwaves and floods worse, and could trigger runaway climate change that cannot be contained. Countries like Pakistan, among the most climate-vulnerable in the world, will feel the effects first and hardest.
• What happens next: Leaders at COP31, which runs until 20 November, are under pressure to agree stronger emissions cuts and more money for poorer countries.

What the report found: 2.7°C on current policies

The Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific project run by Climate Analytics and the NewClimate Institute. Every year it adds up what governments are actually doing — the laws passed, the power plants built, the cars sold — and works out where global temperatures are heading.

This year’s findings are blunt. On current policies, the world will warm by 2.7°C by 2100. That is 1.2 degrees above the 1.5°C limit countries promised to aim for, and nearly double it.

The report also tested what would happen if governments kept every promise they have made. The answer is sobering: warming would still reach 2.6°C by the end of the century. That figure is unchanged from 2024 and 2025, which the report’s lead author, Sarah Heck of Climate Analytics, said shows that the new promises made last year have “failed to move the needle” on projected warming.

Even in the most hopeful case the report models — where every country delivers all its pledges, targets and long-term promises to cut emissions to zero overall — the world would still warm by 1.9°C by 2100.

“This is still not enough,” Heck said. “Countries really do need to strengthen their targets.”

The picture is similar to a recent report from the United Nations Environment Programme, which also concluded that keeping warming within 1.5°C is no longer possible and put the world on course for about 2.6°C even if all current pledges are met. That UN report said the lowest-overshoot path would need about 320 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to be removed from the atmosphere and stored over the course of this century.

Five years of stalled progress

The most striking finding in the Climate Action Tracker report is not a single number. It is the flat line behind the numbers.

In the first five years after the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, the world’s climate efforts cut a full degree Celsius from projected warming. Governments passed laws, set targets and began shifting away from coal. The world moved.

But in the five years since then, progress has essentially stopped. “Aggregated climate action has now essentially stalled for five consecutive years, with positive and negative actions cancelling each other out,” the report says. Good steps — a new wind farm here, a coal plant closure there — have been wiped out by decisions that increased emissions.

Heck said some countries are now moving backwards. The United States, Canada and New Zealand are slowing down their climate action “to a staggering level”, she said.

The report’s warning is that the world has run out of time to avoid passing 1.5°C. The question now is how far past it temperatures go, and for how long they stay there.

What does “overshoot” actually mean?

The word “overshoot” sounds technical, but the idea is simple. The 1.5°C limit is a line the world agreed not to cross. An overshoot means crossing it — and then, hopefully, bringing temperatures back down below it by the end of the century by cutting emissions sharply and removing carbon dioxide from the air.

The problem, the report warns, is that the overshoot may become “irrecoverable”. That means temperatures could rise so far, and stay high for so long, that they trigger self-reinforcing changes in the climate system — such as the thawing of permafrost or the melting of ice sheets — which keep driving warming on their own, whatever people do afterwards.

Scientists have warned that beyond 1.5°C, storms, droughts, heatwaves and flooding that already cause harm will become intolerable in parts of the world, and could trigger runaway climate change that cannot be contained.

That is why the report’s authors say passing 1.5°C must not become an excuse to give up. Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, one of the organisations behind the tracker, said exceeding the limit “cannot be an excuse to open the door to defeatism” and that every small increment of temperature rise will be significant.

“The stark choice for governments is to either continue to support the fossil fuel industry, which would consign humanity to insurmountable economic damages, rising mortality from heat and climate-driven diseases and disasters that they are unable to adapt to — or pivot to the solutions which are available and cheaper than ever,” Hare said.

“Everything and everyone we love is at stake”

The report landed in the middle of the COP31 summit, where government leaders from almost every country — minus the United States — are gathered in Antalya. The talks, which run from 9 to 20 November, have been dominated by the looming overshoot of the temperature target.

On Tuesday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told the summit that the facts should push governments to act quickly to phase out fossil fuels, which are the main cause of the climate crisis. Guterres had already warned before the summit that the world faced a “moment of truth” on climate action.

The leaders of small island nations, who face losing their land to rising seas, delivered the most urgent messages. Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine told the summit on Wednesday: “Every new oil well drilled, every piece of coal extracted is a threat to my country’s future. The discovery of new fossil fuel resources is not something to celebrate, but something to fear. No one has the right to pollute their neighbours.”

Heine, who recalled coral she watched go from “bright and lush” to white with bleaching this year, said the world’s response to passing the 1.5°C limit “must be overwhelming or the world we know is over.”

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley pressed rich countries not just to promise money to poorer nations, but to actually pay it. “Pledges are not payments. But even the promised pledges are now 70% below previous levels,” she told fellow leaders. “So the applause in this room, let us be clear, has never rebuilt a single home in any country.”

Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, who arrived in Antalya on Tuesday, warned that “everything and everyone we love is at stake” because of the failure to confront the climate crisis.

The few bright spots

The report is not entirely bleak. It points to several reasons for hope, and they matter because they show that change is possible when governments and markets act.

Carbon pollution is set to dip slightly this year, the report notes. Investment in clean energy is now double investment in fossil fuels. Electric car use is soaring around the world. And deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has fallen sharply.

These are real shifts. The problem is speed. Clean energy is growing fast, but not fast enough to cancel out the new oil wells, gas fields and coal plants still being approved. That is the gap the report measures: the difference between what the world is doing and what the science says it must do.

Heck put it plainly: “Governments collectively are simply not moving fast enough to adopt the policies that would enable us to escape from the emerging overshoot trap.”

What it means for Pakistan

For Pakistan, the overshoot warning is not an abstract debate about numbers. The country is one of the most climate-vulnerable in the world, and it has already lived through what hotter temperatures bring: devastating floods in 2022, record heatwaves, and shrinking glaciers in the north that feed the rivers millions of people depend on. 2026 is set to be the second-hottest year on record, adding to the pressure.

That is why Pakistan’s case was front and centre at COP31 this week. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told a high-level clean-energy session in Antalya on Wednesday that Pakistan needs about $188 billion by 2035 to complete its switch to clean energy — around $138 billion for low-carbon electricity generation and another $50 billion to replace coal-based power with solar energy. He called on international partners to provide concessional financing — low-cost loans and grants — and affordable technology to make it possible.

The prime minister said clean energy sources now account for nearly 55 per cent of Pakistan’s energy mix, and that the country has added nearly 22,000 megawatts of rooftop solar capacity in just two years, as households and businesses turned to their own panels to escape high electricity prices.

Pakistan has backed the global “35 by 35” electrification pledge, which aims to raise electricity’s share of total final energy consumption to about 35 per cent by 2035. But as Shehbaz Sharif stressed in Antalya, developing countries cannot meet such targets without money and technology flowing from richer nations — the same finance gap that leaders like Mia Mottley raised at the summit.

For ordinary Pakistanis, the stakes of the overshoot are measured in floods, heatwaves and harvests. Every fraction of a degree of extra warming means hotter summers in cities like Jacobabad and Lahore, more erratic monsoon rains, and more pressure on the Indus river system that waters the country’s farms.

What happens next at COP31

The COP31 summit continues until 20 November, and the Climate Action Tracker report has set the tone for the second week of talks. Negotiators must now decide whether to agree on stronger national emissions targets, a faster phase-out of fossil fuels, and more finance for the countries hit hardest by climate change.

The world has already used up the easy years. The first five years after Paris showed that rapid progress is possible. The last five years showed what happens when it stops.

As Hare said, the choice facing governments is stark — and the cost of choosing wrong will be measured in lives, homes and harvests, in Pakistan and far beyond.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Climate Action Tracker?

The Climate Action Tracker is an independent scientific project run by Climate Analytics and the NewClimate Institute. It measures government climate action against the goals of the Paris Agreement and estimates how much the world will warm as a result.

What does “irrecoverable overshoot” mean?

It means the world is heading to pass the 1.5°C warming limit by so much, and for so long, that it triggers self-reinforcing climate changes — like thawing permafrost and melting ice sheets — that keep driving warming even if emissions are later cut. The report says the priority now is to limit how far and how long temperatures overshoot, and bring them back below 1.5°C by 2100.

How much will the world warm by 2100?

On current policies, 2.7°C above pre-industrial times. If every country kept all its climate promises, 2.6°C. In the most optimistic scenario, where all pledges and long-term net-zero promises are delivered in full, 1.9°C.

Why is 1.5°C important?

The 1.5°C limit was agreed under the Paris Agreement in 2015 as the threshold for avoiding the most dangerous climate impacts. Beyond it, scientists warn that storms, droughts, heatwaves and floods become intolerable in parts of the world and could trigger runaway climate change.

What is COP31?

COP31 is the 31st United Nations climate change conference, held in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026. Government leaders are negotiating stronger emissions cuts and more finance for countries worst affected by climate change. You can read more in Findivoza’s coverage of the summit opening and the UN chief’s warning before it began.

What did Pakistan ask for at COP31?

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Pakistan needs about $188 billion by 2035 for its clean-energy transition — $138 billion for low-carbon power generation and $50 billion to replace coal power with solar — and called for concessional financing and affordable technology from international partners.

Conclusion

The Climate Action Tracker report is the clearest warning yet that the world has drifted off course on climate change. Five years of stalled action have pushed the 1.5°C limit out of reach, and current policies point to 2.7°C of warming by the end of the century.

But the report is not a surrender. It shows that the tools to change course exist — clean energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels, electric cars are booming, and deforestation is falling. What is missing is the political will to use them fast enough.

For Pakistan, and for the billions of people who will live with the consequences, the message from Antalya is simple: the overshoot is coming, but its size is still a choice. The decisions taken at COP31 in the coming days will help decide how big that choice turns out to be.

Sources

• Associated Press (via The Week) — 5 years of fighting climate change haven’t done much and stronger targets are needed, report says: https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/international/2026/11/12/5-years-of-fighting-climate-change-haven-t-done-much-and-stronger-targets-are-needed-report-says.html
• The Guardian (via BytesEU) — World heading for ‘irrevocable overshoot’ of global temperature thresholds, analysis warns: https://www.byteseu.com/2515655/
• Pollar News — Climate Action Tracker sees 2.7C warming by 2100 at COP31: https://pollar.news/en/event/cop31-15c-overshoot-looms
• Azat TV — Global Climate Analysis Warns of ‘Irrecoverable Overshoot’ as UN Talks Convene in Antalya: https://azat.tv/en/global-climate-analysis-warns-of-irrecoverable-overshoot/
• The Express Tribune — PM Shehbaz to address COP31 summit in Turkiye, highlight climate justice: https://tribune.com.pk/story/2639755/pm-shehbaz-to-address-cop31-summit-in-turkiye-highlight-climate-justice
• Profit by Pakistan Today — Pakistan needs $188bn for clean energy by 2035: PM: https://profit.pakistantoday.com.pk/2026/11/11/pakistan-needs-dollar188bn-for-clean-energy-transition-by-2035-pm-tells-cop31

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.